I have always loved to learn languages. 

When I was a pre-teen, my mother had a two-volume dictionary.  The first volume was a regular English dictionary.  The second volume was a long word list with seven columns.  The first column listed an English word.  The rest of the columns listed a translation of the word in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish and Yiddish.  The Yiddish was written in the Roman alphabet.  I only learned later that it is correctly written in the Hebrew alphabet.

Why were those languages chosen for the dictionary?  Who knows?  And frankly, I didn't care.  But I loved that second volume. 

As a sixth grader, I would take my list of spelling words and translate it into each of the six languages.  When my homework was to write a sentence for each of the spelling words, I would dutifully do it.  And then translate the sentences into my six languages.

I loved learning languages.  I studied all the languages offered at my high school.  Then eventually I majored in French. 

So I grew up and became a mother. And my daughter never ceases to amaze me.

I am shy. My daughter never hesitates to talk to strangers.

I am no good at sports. My daughter excells at basketball and soccer.

And, as I said, I love to learn languages. My daughter . . . well . . . doesn't. Val almost failed Italian.

So I had this great idea to make learning Italian a Mom-and-Val time thing. You know what I mean. She and I would have Italian classes three or four times a week. That's often enough for her to learn and not so often that we would get on each other's nerves. No boys allowed. Just Val and me. And we would learn how to speak Italian.

I went shopping for Italian classes.

Sitting with a list of words the way I did in sixth grade is not quite Val's style. The woman is connected. She loves her iPod and her Wii. She has not forgiven me for not getting her an iPhone. (I don't have an iPhone . . . but that's the subject of another Hub.)

An interactive online course is the obvious choice for her. And there are a lot of choices online. Of course, some are better than others. Prices vary, too. So I shopped around.  Review sites, like Learn Italian Online, are helpful to get a quick view of what is available.

Val and I have had a great time having our Val-and-Mom learn Italian time.  And she and I have both learned a lot.  We tease each other sometimes, speaking Italian when we are out shopping or when we don't want her brother to know what we are saying.

But she would still rather be shooting baskets than learning Italian.  And I still get a kick out of it.